Shopping in Jocotepec

San Juan Cosalá is small. I may have mentioned this before. “Village” is the right term. This means that I must venture to other towns to do some of my shopping. This is true not only when I’m shopping for exotic items like spinach and unsweetened yoghurt, but also when I’m shopping for things like dried beans.

Wednesdays I go to Ajijic and shop at the produce market there, so today for my non-produce purchases, I went west instead to Jocotepec. I like to mix things up. Keep it fresh.

Here’s a map, so you can get your bearings. Print this and keep it handy in case you need to come visit some day.



San Juan Cosala is roughly in the middle, on the north shore of the lake. East of San Juan you find Ajijic and San Antonio (where the spendy import store is), and then Chapala. West, you find Jocotepec. There are some other small towns in between, but you don’t see them here. The road leading north from Chapala goes to Guadalajara. This is from Google Maps, by the way.

To catch a bus, I went and stood in front of our house and waited about 15 minutes. Buses stop basically anywhere, in the middle of the road, or where have you. It’s convenient, but also annoying when passengers have the driver stop, oh, pretty much every half block. I’ve been getting good at catching buses, though. I feel I have the right arm salute for flagging them down, and they pretty much never pass me by anymore.

So I jumped on the first bus to pass by and even found a seat. Once in Jocotepec, I found the plaza and started scoping tiendas for good prices. Walking through the plaza, I was really surprised to see a banner advertising Okinawan karate.



The teacher even has a Japanese name and might even be Japanese. This is fascinating, because mostly everyone down here is Mexican, with a splash of white Americans and white Canadians (mostly in Ajijic). I’m considering posing as a potential student to discover whether anyone might actually be from Okinawa. Probably the growing watermelon under my shirt will ruin the disguise, but it’s worth a try, no? Maybe I could don a mustache and pretend I want to start karate to work off this beer gut.

It’s pretty silly really, what would I say anyway? “Hey! I went to Okinawa! I had an incredible time. I wish I could go back and visit my friends there.” Not very interesting conversation. It would be good to have an excuse to don a mustache, though.

Back on task, at the markets in Jocotepec, I encountered a funky brown fruit that I’ve been seeing around this winter. It’s called mamey. I brought one home to try.

This is the photo I ripped off Wikipedia. This is how they sell them here, too. I was just too embarrassed to take a photo of the vendors.



These are my shots.



I can’t say I was impressed by the mamey. It’s not bad, but not so great, either. It’s a pretty mediocre fruit. The outside is brown and rough; the inside is bright orange. It tastes kind of like a subtly sweet yam, and has a hearty weight to it. It’s more substantial than most fruits. The texture was smooth, kind of like a papaya or avocado. Apparently they’re native to southern Mexico.

If anyone has encountered the mamey before and knows of a delicious way to dress it up, please let me know. I’ll probably finish eating it with my ol’ fall back: lime and chili.